officials, to participate in the direction that the city goes in, it is wrong. >> speakers today in detroit told the crowd stand up for your rights. we will aggravate, agitate, be a nuisance until our voice is heard. somebody else warned the crowd, those of you in other cities that think it won't happen to you, you just wait and see. she argued being put under an emergency manager left her town, highland park, in worse shape than when the emergency manager got there. michigan has been experimenting with emergency managers for awhile now. and that experiment has produced bad enough results that a couple of democratic congressmen from detroit are asking for help from the federal government. before now, they asked the federal government to consider how emergency management gets rid of local voting rights, which is particularly fraught, given that half the black population of michigan has now had its local voting rights taken away by these measures. now the two detroit congressmen are asking for another kind of help. they're asking the government accountability office to look

into whether emergency management even works, quoting congressman john conyers, it is difficult to identify a single instance where an emergency manager succeeded in turning around the financial fortunes of a city or jurisdiction. and yes, if you consider all of the times michigan has taken away local democracy, supposedly to fix a broken place, if you look at the way they've done it going way back, only the one town on this map, marked with a red star, only that one cute little tourist town has actually recovered, has recovered, has gone through emergency management and given their democracy back and then stayed healthy. every single other place on this map they tried it is either still under state control or is faltering. and so why exactly are you giving up your local voting rights? they say you have to because your local democracy cannot be the means by which you solve these problems, but if the problems in your state persist, even under dictatorial control of somebody you didn't elect

that has unilateral authority to do everything, including abolishing your town, why are we getting rid of democracy and handing it over to those folks? what's it for. as of today, the state has taken over michigan's largest city, a grand experiment that has a horrible track record thus far and there's a lot of angry people caught in the middle. i do not know what michiganders say when they want to indicate something will be a real rodeo, whatever that phrase is in michigan, here we go. now it is time for the last word with lawrence o'donnell. marriage equality's day in court is tomorrow and the next day. and suddenly we're hearing from a lesbian cousin of the chief justice that seems to believe he is going to do the right thing. >> the supreme court hears two days of arguments over same sex marriage. >> the public and political mood is clearly shifting. >> there's no putting this jeannie back in the bottle. >> the shift is here, we're not

going back. >> this issue is dead for republicans. >> there are still a lot of republicans against gay marriage. >> you have a conservative bringing it down to pro-creation. >> do we have a compelling interest in strengthening and supporting complimentary and procreative union of a man and woman. >> the most ridiculous argument i've ever heard. >> the tide has completely shifted. >> the party needs a more libertarian view on this. >> this country has shifted away from conservative ideals. >> politicians are dumber than dirt sometimes. >> who would you rather fight, wayne lapierre? >> the whole thing, universal checks, is a dishonest premise. >> or mike bloomberg. >> we have a lot of work ahead of us. >> biggest voices in the gun debates square off. >> criminals aren't going to be checked. >> this isn't about wayne lapierre. >> he can't buy america. >> this is about a public wanting to be safe on their streets. >> background checks has pretty broad support. >> 90% of the american people support stronger background checks. >> the nra wants to do things

that makes people safe. >> interesting remarks. >> mayor bloomberg has the american people i believe on his side. >> this country shifted away from conservative ideals. >> we have to win in 2014 and we have to win in 2016. >> i remain haunted by the experience of the 2012 campaign. >> why i think republicans should be focused like a laser beam on nothing but getting elected. >> we have a long way to go, but we're making progress. >> oh, my goodness! yes! when supporters of marriage equality go in front of the supreme court to defend marriage equality tomorrow morning, they will have three more democratic senators on their side. senator mark warner of virginia, senator claire mccaskill of missouri announced today they support marriage equality, and senator jay rockefeller of west virginia that voted for the defense of marriage act told politico today he now thinks it is unconstitutional.

they join republican senator rob portman who announced his support for same-sex marriage after he learned his son is gay. today, will portman wrote in the yale daily news some people have criticized my dad for waiting for two years after i came out to him before he endorsed marriage for gay couples. part of the reason for that is that it took time for him to think through the issue more deeply after the impetus of my coming out. but another factor was my reluctance to make my personal life public. a reuters poll released in the past week found 63% support gay marriage or civil unions. karl rove was asked about republicans and marriage equality this weekend. >> karl rove, can you imagine the next presidential campaign, republican candidate, saying flat out i am for gay marriage? >> i could. >> though some republicans are softening on marriage equality,

rush limbaugh remains a valiant defender of the defense of marriage act, and of course, just as valiant a defender of divorce, rush limbaugh who at this hour is not yet divorced from his fourth wife offered this push back against republicans supporting marriage equality. >> so why would the republican establishment be supporting it? maybe that's a question that i'm not supposed to ask. but i'd like to know if the issue would lose, as it always has, if left up to a vote of the people, then why are the republicans for it? if it's a losing issue, why not let the democrats own it. the republicans are in a totally

defensive posture, think they're losing because they're not enough like democrats. >> joining me now, msnbc analyst, former mccain adviser steve schmidt, one of 131 republicans to sign onto an amicus brief supporting marriage equality, and msnbc's karen finney. steve, i have to ask you the rove question off the bat. can you imagine the next republican presidential candidate being in favor of marriage equality? >> i think that the next republican candidate could be in favor of marriage equality with there being no consequence in the road to the nomination and no political consequence for senators like rob portman who come out in favor of it, but i doubt we will see it in the next election. >> steve, i've got to tell you, i think karen finney and i are both wondering please explain to us, steve, how that candidate would get through the iowa caucuses as a first stop? >> well, look, rick santorum won

the iowa caucuses. he wasn't the nominee. pat robertson won iowa caucus, he wasn't the nominee. iowa doesn't pick the republican nominee any more than it does in the democratic party, but the republican party in 2016, 2020, cannot be held hostage to the social extremism that some in our party have on all these issues because the country is changing and voters in the middle won't tolerate it. >> karen finney, a striking quote from a lesbian that wants to marry her partner, happens to be a cousin of the chief justice of the united states supreme court. she has said he is a smart man, he is a good man, i believe he sees where the tide is going. i do trust him. i absolutely trust that he will go in a good direction.

i guess it is a question of how well does she know her cousin. >> that's a fine question. i don't want to prejudge or jinx it, but i think it is the right thing to do, but from a legal standpoint i take the position as an interracial person, when my parents were married in 1967, it was illegal in their home states for them to be married. my own grandfather, you know, opposed their marriage on moral and legal grounds. so many of the arguments that we're hearing now about why same sex couples shouldn't be married, they said blacks and whites can't marry, that's not a valid marriage. a lot of the same kinds of arguments. the law i think is there and the precedent is there to say we can't create separate but equal classes. the existence of those separate groupings suggests we're treating separate but equal. i feel that by the law, i hope these guys made their case and the justices need to follow the

law, even if they don't listen to public sentiment. >> steve, i was thinking about the chief justice today in light of his cousin's comments which really stopped me. the more you think about it, the more it would make sense for him to do what his cousin is hoping he does. he is a young chief justice. he knows what's going on in this country. he can see where the trend line is going. and i think he would know that if the roberts court found against marriage equality that that would at some point be overturned by a future court not that far down the road. >> one of the things i did in the white house was run the confirmation process for judge roberts at the time. he is a brilliant man, a brilliant jurist. he is a young chief justice as you pointed out. this case and the ruling that comes down from the roberts court is going to leave a huge imprint on history, and i suspect, i have no way of

knowing, i have no inside information or details, but i suspect he is not going to want to be on the wrong side of history and i suspect a number of the justices will fall into that category on this. >> karen finney, it seems to me that would hold for anthony kennedy. it is just one of those cases where you can, unlike some of the other bad decisions the court has made in the past that got reversed, at this moment you could actually see that the right wing view of this will not be able to hold in this country for another generation. >> i think that's right. again, both from a legal standpoint, i think the justification is there, the history is there, the law is there, and from the standpoint of, you know, this is where the country is. was no longer in the same way was no longer think that interracial marriage is something horrible, a majority of americans, majority of young people agree with the idea of same sex marriage. so i hope again that the justices will follow the law in

this case. >> let's listen to what the fighters are saying. ralph reed yesterday on "meet the press." >> the issue before the country is do we have a compelling interest in strengthening and supporting the durable, enduring, uniquely complimentary, procreative union of a man and woman. >> you look at divorce rates -- >> the answer, that would be an argument why we ought to strengthen it. >> so steve, there's ralph reed saying this is about the procreative union of a man and woman, which i guess makes rush limbaugh's first three marriages and so far his current marriage indefensible? >> this is exactly the point. when you're talking about civil marriage, marriage recognized by the state, whether it is the first, second, third, fourth, fifth or sixth marriages for some of these people, it is a legal marriage in the eyes of the state. and there will be gay people in happy marriages and gay people

in unhappy marriages and there will be divorced gay people. but what is necessary at this point now when you look at the institution of marriage, the profound happiness it can bring to people, a, and b, the fact that it strengthens society, it is an institution that strengthens society, civilly we can't live in a country where it is separate but equal, where we can have some people who are gay who could be married and other people who are gay who can't be married, and some gay people whose marriages are recognized in some states but not in the others. it doesn't make sense over the long term. i think that you will see more and more republicans, more and more democrats as you saw come out today saying we want fairness for our fellow americans who are gays and lesbian. >> but again, lawrence, we saw that kind of logic or weird logic across the sunday shows yesterday, questioning polls, even though they were citing polls to question some of the polls, that says to me they know they're losing, they're losing this argument. when you have to narrow down the

argument, like communications 101, you know you're losing. you know you've lost the broader audience, right, if we are talking about pro-creation for a reason for marriage, you lost the argument. >> steve schmidt and karen finney, thank you for joining me. karen, we will see you at 4:00 all week, filling in for martin bashir. >> yes, sir. >> we will be watching. coming up, the violent talking revolutionary that wants to overthrow the american government, and why republicans are palling around with him. and a billionaire wants better condoms and he is willing to pay for them. bill gates will actually give you a million dollars if you can come up with a better condom. seriously. that's coming up. it's not what . it's a phoenix with 4 wheels. it's a hawk with night vision goggles. it's marching to the beat of a different drum.

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campaign for the republican nomination for president. now she has also won an investigation by the office of congressional ethics, the rise and very, very bad fall of michele bachmann is coming up. [ male announcer ] when you're at the corner of "multivitamin" and "multiple choice," come to walgreens for help finding the one that's right for you... like centrum silver. now, buy one, get one half off with balance rewards card. at the corner of happy and healthy.

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are designed to disarm and punish law abiding gun owners and sports men, these bills would ban commonly owned firearms, impose a gun rationing scheme and mandate gun registration. >> one of the many that received that, the daughter of a sandy hook elementary principal who was shot to death trying to protect her school from a madman who was very well armed, thanks to the relentless lobbying efforts of the national rifle association. in a letter to the nra's wayne lapierre, connecticut senators chris murphy, richard blumenthal said the nra stooped to a new low. they wrote in a community that's still very much in crisis to be making these calls opens a wound that these families are still trying hard to heal. but yourself in the shoes of a victim's family member who gets a call at dinner time asking them to support more assault

weapons in our schools and on our streets. we call on you to show some basic decency and cease and desist these calls. senator murphy, have you had any response to that letter? >> no, we haven't, and likely won't. i would like to think it was unintentional, it wasn't. the nra are sophisticated political operators. they could have put calls into connecticut and avoided newtown. they didn't because they are fringe provocateurs. they enjoy reveling in ads, saying we need more weapons not less in schools and opening the wound in newtown, sending phone calls calling for more assault weapons to families of the victims. this is who the nra have become. they crossed the line over and over and over again. it feeds this image they built in the past several years. i don't think we're going to hear back from them.

i think it was absolutely intentional. i still think they should stop but this is who they've become. >> what are the politics of this issue in connecticut, those calls are calls to try to influence you and calls to try to influence senator bloom enthat you will. you'll be voting on an assault weapons ban when the amendment comes up in the senate. those calls are aimed at trying to turn your vote. >> yeah. again, i think it is the nra trying to show people that they're going to play everywhere and make their argument everywhere, clearly they're not going to prevail in connecticut, clearly senator blum enthat will and i are leading that effort to beat back the nra in the united states senate. in hartford, they are on the verge of passing one of the strongest gun violence bills. this is who the nra has become. ten years ago they came to the capitol and argued for universal background checks. today they're against those background checks because they ref in feeding paranoia, saying

for people to get more and more assault weapons. that's the industry model. because the nra is captive of the industry, that's what they argue for. the more outrageous things they do, the more they have decided to court in the past years. >> senator paul and cruz tried to grab the limelight saying they're going to deliver a letter to harry reid tomorrow in which they will oppose the motion to proceed to any legislation that serves as a vehicle for any additional gun restrictions. we already knew it would take 60 votes to get past the motion to proceed. there's no real news there. i want to listen to what the white house deputy press secretary said today about fighting for the assault weapons ban and the rest of the legislation. let's listen to this. >> i think the president could literally, to paraphrase the vice president, could not have been any clearer when he talked about this in the state of the

union address, where he said he believed these measures, including assault weapons ban deserves a vote. the question will be what members of the senate are willing to do. are they willing to demonstrate political courage to take the kind of step that we know would have a significant impact on getting military style weapons off the streets of communities across the united states of america. >> senator, you're getting help from mike blum enthat will who is pumping money into states where the votes are crucial. what do you think chances are in the weeks that we have between now and then for the blumenthal effect and pleas of constituents to those senators to having an effect, that mike bloomberg is funding this campaign. >> it will be tough to get the assault weapons ban over the finish line but there's an important component, and that is ban of high capacity magazines. if we get that with universal background checks, that's really

important, and the fact is that there are a lot of members of the senate that want to do the right thing but are scared of the nra. bloomberg's efforts show if you cast a vote with your heart and head, rather than with your political tail, you have somebody that will have your back. those ads are important. the president is not turning around and heading for the hills is important as well. if he continues to lead, it is going to be hard for democrats not to join him. >> senator chris murphy of connecticut, thanks for joining us. >> thanks, lawrence. coming up. where are they now? the republican losers who looked in the mirror and saw a president. we will show you what they're all doing now, which in michele bachmann's case includes hiring lawyers to save her career. it's monday.

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in the spotlight tonight, where are they now. the clown car of candidates that

ran for the republican nomination for president. one returned to his comfortable life with his wife and secret tax returns. the loser he chose to run for vice president is wandering the halls of congress talking about repealing obama care while no one listens. rick perry returned to his day job of texas where he does so little governing, he has plenty of time to do memory building exercises if he can remember to do them. >> commerce, education, and the -- what's the third one there. >> rick santorum let us know via twitter not all of his days are idle. he tweeted march 22nd, just spoke to 850 people at naples town hall about radical islam. newt gingrich stays in touch via twitter. this afternoon, he tweeted course on driverless cars starts

in 20 minutes. ron paul seems to be settling comfortably into his retirement after 22 years in congress and 400 runs for president. he now writes columns for his website. herman cain is dean of the flesher school of diplomacy at tufts university. >> who is the president of uzbekistan, i will say i don't know. >> without having to do one more minute of homework on the issues of the day, herman cain has launched a radio show. mr. cain figures if rush can do it -- >> welcome back to the new herman cain show. to our new feature of the week, ask the hermanator. questions other than politics, other than government. questions pertaining to business, pertaining to this

thing called success and prosperity as well as life itself. now, i will warn you, the questions may not always be exhaustive, i mean, the answers are intended to be more directional because to get into an exhaustive answer with specifics you need to consult somebody that might be an expert in that particular field. >> he was actually the frontrunner for the republican nomination for president of the united states. well, the winner of the iowa straw poll, congresswoman michele bachmann returned to congress where she has been shunning the national media she previously pursued. many thought she was shunning the national media to show her minnesota constituents she was more serious about them than pursuing the spotlight. we now know she has a better reason for not answering

questions. congresswoman michele bachmann is under investigation by the office of congressional ethics for alleged federal campaign finance violations. her national field coordinator for the 2012 campaign filed a complaint with the federal election commission alleging that a consultant on her presidential campaign was paid with money from her independent pac, a violation. bachmann's lawyers responded today with a lawyerly statement. there are no allegations that the congresswoman engaged in any wrongdoing. oh, yes, there are. we are constitutionally engaged with the office of congressional ethics and confident that at the end of their review the oce board will conclude that congresswoman bachmann did not do anything inappropriate. joining me now, ann a marie cox and sam stein. you join us from minnesota. how has this rocked the state

that michele bachmann may have dipped into the wrong fund to pay for someone in her presidential campaign? >> well, it made her -- it gave her a head line, which she hadn't had since earlier in the month when she made announcement about funding for roads in her district, which is really what she would rather talk about right now. you know, she actually is in more trouble in her district than she has been before. almost lost to a democratic challenge erin the last cycle, and they spent no money on that challenger, came within two points of beating her. she's in trouble. i think she's in trouble on a lot of fronts, not just this investigation. >> and sam, these allegations come from within her campaign, the people that are working on her campaign revealing that they believe she did this and fec records are supportive of the story that they're telling, that money came out of her pac to pay one of the consultants that was working on the presidential

campaign, and she apparently at the same time had suspended payment to anyone actually working on the campaign, everyone else working on the campaign, so created a little bitterness in campaign staff among those unpaid while one guy was getting paid a lot. >> the lesson obviously is that you have to pay your workers, otherwise they might turn on you. this is sort of, first of all, establish that she is innocent until proven guilty. second, this is sort of a pattern for michele bachmann where people under her have a short shelf life in her office, whether because she sours on them or they sour on her. ed rollins, her campaign manager in the early stages of her campaign quit. staffers in new hampshire office quit, staffers in the congressional office have quit. it is part of the routine of working with michele bachmann. the only thing i would add on a more serious note, we can joke around about this stuff, but

people gave, real people gave to her campaign. real people gave to her pac, people that don't have money handy. she got them to give money to her political action committee and campaign and she potentially misused it. i feel bad for people that were deceived if this is, in fact, true. >> it is hard to feel bad for anyone that gave money to michele bachmann to become president of the united states. >> have a heart. >> those people are making mistakes with money all day long. you can't start -- ana marie, the staffer that revealed this has said to me that was unconscionable, that's his quote, you know, that she was refusing to pay the staff but the consultant, she was dipping into the other pot to pay big time, and as the details of this come out, it is going to get more and more specific and seems to me michele bachmann will have a lot of local coverage of this there in minnesota. >> i think she probably will.

not only did she pay the consultant, she paid him twice. and also this holiday, this pay day holiday they were on occurred over christmas. that's when she wasn't paying her staff, over the christmas holidays. so she's quite the grinch. >> maybe they were jewish. >> i think it violates minnesotans' sense of fairness. >> sam, we're done with this segment, want you to help me lead into another segment with this question. how much would you pay for a better condom? >> what? >> bill gates offered to pay a million for a better condom. >> hey, if he has the money, why not, right? >> if you stick around in the green room, watch the final segment tonight, you will know why. >> why are those questions coming to me? >> well, i just think generally men pay for condoms. bill gates is willing to pay a million for a condom. i was trying to see if you had a price. >> i appreciate it, thank you,

lawrence. >> stick around, watch what this is about in the final block of the show coming up. and the rewrite is before that. you know how to mix business... with business. and you...rent from national. because only national lets you choose any car in the aisle. and go. you can even take a full-size or above. and still pay the mid-size price. i could get used to this. [ male announcer ] yes, you could business pro. yes, you could. go national. go like a pro. ♪ [ male announcer ] how do you engineer a true automotive breakthrough? ♪ you give it bold styling, unsurpassed luxury and nearly 1,000 improvements. the redesigned 2013 glk. see your authorized mercedes-benz dealer

for exceptional offers through mercedes-benz financial services. when the doctor told me that i could smoke for the first week... i'm like...yeah, ok... little did i know that one week later i wasn't smoking. [ male announcer ] along with support, chantix (varenicline) is proven to help people quit smoking. it reduces the urge to smoke. some people had changes in behavior, thinking or mood, hostility, agitation, depressed mood and suicidal thoughts or actions while taking or after stopping chantix. if you notice any of these stop taking chantix and call your doctor right away. tell your doctor about any history of depression or other mental health problems, which could get worse while taking chantix. don't take chantix if you've had a serious allergic or skin reaction to it. if you develop these stop taking chantix and see your doctor right away as some can be life-threatening. tell your doctor if you have a history of heart or blood vessel problems, or if you develop new or worse symptoms. get medical help right away if you have symptoms of a heart attack or stroke. use caution when driving or operating machinery. common side effects include nausea, trouble sleeping and unusual dreams. people around you...they say, you're much bigger than this.

and you are. [ male announcer ] ask your doctor if chantix is right for you. i have something absolutely brilliant to say about grover norquist in tonight's "rewrite" which i stole from a friend. that's next.

we're in los angeles with the bing it on challenge to show google users what they've been missing on bing. let's bing it on. [fight bell: ding, ding] how many here are google users? what if i was to tell you that you would actually like bing way more than google when it came to the results? prove it. let's look up some taco places. i like the left side. yeah? okay, do we need to find out what the waves are like down at the beach? what side do you like better? i like the results on the right. i'm gonna go with the one on the left. oh! bing won! people prefer bing over google for the web's top searches. don't believe it? go to bingiton.com and see what you're missing. her long day of pick ups and drop offs begins with arthritis pain... and a choice. take up to 6 tylenol in a day or just 2 aleve for all day relief. all aboard. ♪ politics is one of those areas where the so-called experts don't always have the best vantage point.

you can be too close to a subject, too enmeshed in its details to see some of its larger truths, and that is definitely true of politics. i have never thought more clearly about politics than when i knew nothing about it. in 1988, i was absolutely certain of one thing. michael due calk is wouldn't be president. didn't matter when he would become the front runner for president, i knew he would never be president. didn't matter that he eventually had an 18 point lead over the republican candidate, vice president george h.w. bush. i knew he would never be president. i could see that very clearly. and i didn't care what the professionals thought. i didn't care what the experts thought. that was the year that i lost my amateur standing and got my first paycheck in politics, even though i still knew nothing about it. i found myself drafted into senator daniel patrick moin

han's election campaign by his wife and campaign manager, elizabeth moynihan. they didn't need me, they would win with more than two-thirds of the vote no matter who worked on the campaign, but i needed a paycheck. there i was at my first convention, democratic national convention, knowing full well what no one else seemed to know, that their nominee, michael dukakis would never be president. the view is better from the seats up high over the 50 yard line than it is down there where the coaches are standing on the sidelines. and when you're sitting way up high in the grand stand, you have a chance to see things the people on the field could never see. tonight's "rewrite" is a perfect case in point. someone in the grand stand of american politics spotted the way one of the most powerful players in our politics is playing the game, something we

professional political analysts haven't seen. last word friend barry levinson, academy award winning writer, director, producer, is a wise and generous man. he spotted something from up in the grand stand about our politics and has generously given me permission to steal it for tonight's "rewrite" in which we, barry and i, will rewrite the political media's view of grover norquist. in a recent huffington post article from which i am about to liberally borrow, barry points out anti-tax fanatic grover norquist's first tactic in the war on taxes is, quote, to devalue the english language. he continues to say his goal is to shrink government and drown it in the bathtub. what he is really saying is i want a revolution, i want to overturn this democracy and

create a new government. this is a crucially important and downright brilliant revelation. he is not a conservative. repeat, grover norquist is not a conservative. tell your friends, he is not a conservative. he is a revolutionary. think, just think! think how the media and the republican party would treat grover norquist if they saw him for what he really is, a revolutionary. all american revolutionaries since our first successful revolutionaries have been concerted crazies. there are revolutionaries in this country right now, there always are, americans that want to overthrow this government, but they are few and harmless and unable to build followings because among other things we don't book that particular kind of crazy as guests on our tv shows. grover loves the idea of drowning the government in a

bathtub. has said it repeatedly over the years. once said our goal is to cut government in half as a percentage of the economy over 25 years so that we can get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub. another moment, said i don't want to abolish government, i simply want to reduce it to the size where i can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub. i know some of you are saying oh, come on, drowning in the bathtub is just a metaphor. i think grover does use metaphor frequently. this might be an example of it, for example. quote, bipartisanship is another name for date rape. but when it comes to the bathtub, barry levinson and i have trouble seeing the metaphor. barry writes what is the metaphor? he said he wants to kill the government in a bathtub, the only substitute is overturn the government. he is a revolutionary like len

on or mao. he doesn't believe in the system but doesn't want to say it with as much clarity as they did. if you just want to lower taxes, is it necessary to drown the government in a bathtub? simply say you want a lower tax code, period, drown the tax code. but he wants to droin the government of the united states. kill what the founding fathers fought for. it is not only about taxes, he is opposed to this government, the u.s. government. he is a new kind of revolutionary, a 21st century revolutionary. he is the kind of revolutionary that sarah palin would like to pal around with. sarah palin thought she could crush presidential candidate barack obama by talking about him palling around with terrorists. virtually every republican elected official in washington has palled around with grover

norquist, with a revolutionary, with someone whose goal is to destroy the federal government, destroy the founding fathers' creation. if they take grover norquist's goal so seriously they are willing to sign a pledge to follow his dictates on taxation, why don't republicans take grover norquist's words seriously? when jane fonda was protesting the vietnam war, if she said she wanted to drown the american government in bathtubs would they cheer the way they cheer grover norquist for saying exactly that? jane fonda never said anything as revolutionary as grover norquist. jane fonda simply wanted her government to stop doing something, wanted the government to stop wasting american lives and vietnamese lives in an unjust war we never should have entered and eventually

surrendered. vietnam protesters wanted the government to stop doing something. grover norquist wants his government to stop. he wants government to stop. he wants to replace the government we have with some undescribed alternative with alternate taxation or no taxation. we have no idea what kind of government grover norquist supports because he hasn't described that. he is not very clear about that. what he is clear about is how much he hates the american government. and i, for one, completely support his right to express that hatred in whatever homicidal terms he chooses on any given day, but think, please, just please think what it would be like if someone else tried to use the words of grover norquist publicly, someone, say, who is not white, someone who did not work for newt gingrich in the congress, someone who had

not worked for the reagan campaigns. barry levinson offered this thought exercise in his article, grover and the bathtub. say his name is not grover norquist. he is a black man or latino or for that matter any minority, and he says as norquist did, our goal is to inflict pain. it is not enough to win. it has to be a wayneful, devastating defeat, like when the king would take his opponent's head and spike it on a pole for everyone to see. what if this guy had said that, our goal is to inflict pain? what if this guy talked about spiking his opponent's head on a pole for everyone to see? what's the difference between van jones and grover norquist? grover norquist went to harvard college, harvard business school. van jones went to university of tennessee and yale law school.

not much difference there. grover norquist worked for the reagan administration. van jones worked for the obama administration. not much difference there. but there is a difference. there's a big difference. if van jones had ever said our goal is to inflict pain, it's not enough to win, it has to be a painful, devastating defeat, like when the king would take his opponent's head and spike it on a pole for everyone to see, what would o'reilly say that night? what would sean hannity do that night? sean would devote the entire hour of his show to condemnation of van jones which i believe he has done from time to time. he would call van jones a revolutionary. those guys demonized van jones for nothing and they cheer on the revolutionary, the enemy of the government, grover norquist. and now we know how an american revolutionary company championed

by the right wing media and welcomed into the halls of power by republicans in congress. two things are necessary. first of all, be white, be very, very white. and second, pretend to be a conservative. acceler-rental. at a hertz expressrent kiosk, you can rent a car without a reservation... and without a line. now that's a fast car. it's just another way you'll be traveling at the speed of hertz.

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the united states will join with our allies to eradicate such extreme poverty in the next two decades by connecting more people to the global economy, and by realizing the promise of an aids free generation, which is within our reach. >> with that aids free generation in mind, the bill and melinda gates foundation is offering up to $1.1 million for

a promising idea for a better condom. the website notes the primary draw back from the male perspective is that condoms decrease pleasure compared to no condom, creating a tradeoff many men find unacceptable, given the decisions about use must be made just prior to intercourse. is it possible to develop a product without this stigma, or better, one that's felt to enhance pleasure. if so, would such a product lead to substantial benefits for global health in terms of reducing the incidence of unplanned pregnancies and in prevention of infection with hiv or other stis. and here is the challenge. we are looking for a next generation condom that significant mri preserves or enhances pleasure in order to improve uptake and regular use. joining me now, anthony fauci, he received the presidential medal of freedom for aids research.

doctor, this is an issue with condoms i haven't heard publicly discussed before that may be involved in them not being used as much as we need them to be used around the world in the aids fight. what do you think the hopes are, the possibilities are, for what bill and melinda gates are trying to advance here? >> well, as in all challenge grants, the way the gates foundation has put forth here, a possibility that someone will come up with a good idea, a good product that would remove some reluctance on the part of people to use condoms. condoms is one of the most effective ways to avoid hiv infection, no doubt about that. one of the things we need to do better on is in the area of prevention. condom use is one of the real weapons we can use in prevention. the idea about getting over that hump of reluctance some people have, and there's no doubt about that, there is reluctance because of real or perceived issue that there may not be as much physical